Version 1.0.1.3
NO GUARANTEE OR SUPPORT IS IMPLIED OR PROMISED!
While I enjoyed the built-in selection of games in the Namco Museum - My Arcade Mini Player, there were a ton of great Namco games that weren't represented. Since the built-in games didn't stick strictly to arcade games and had some console representation, why not take things further and make it so the unit can present several different versions of games?
Like putting the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man next to the NES version?
Or, there's Splatterhouse 1 and 2 on there - where's Splatterhouse 3?
So I set about to see if I could expand the selection of games - I dared to dream that I'd find an editable game list somewhere, but no... BUT! It's an Android device with developer mode turned on - so I set about writing a new launcher APK...
A set of Windows batch files and an Android APK to allow you to install and run RetroArch on the Namco Museum My Arcade Mini Player, and an entirely custom-made frontend which you can use to launch whatever games you want using whatever RetroArch cores you want. Granting you an Extra Museum, if you will.
Crucially, this also provides a RetroArch configuration that allows you to navigate the RetroArch frontend using the built-in controls of the Namco Museum My Arcade Mini Player.
The original frontend and game selection are easily accessible from the new launcher - at boot you can choose to launch RetroArch or the original experience.
This includes system icons by Reddit user faustbear in frontend/systems - if you want
more amazing systems in this style, you can get them in their original form here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/miniSNESmods/comments/97bm5v/additional_icon_pack_20_for_hakchicenescsnesc/
This includes sample screenshots from a large amount of Namco games from the 70s and 80s
across various systems in frontend/screenshots - screenshots should ideally be no wider
than 160 pixels.
This includes sample thumbnails from a large amount of Namco games from the 70s and 80s
across various systems in frontend/thumbnails - a Pixelmator template is provided at
frontend/thumbnail_template.pxm to make your own. Thumbnails should ideally be 100x150
pixels. This template and the rest of the frontend uses the font "Namco" by Akihiro and
can be found here:
https://www.dafont.com/namco.font
A collection of ROMs or emulators - you'll have to find and add those yourself.
Knowing how to use RetroArch is beyond scope here - the intention is currently to get everything onto the Namco Museum My Arcade Mini Player that you need to launch RetroArch and play games with it, but beyond that you'll have to find information elsewhere on what to do and how to properly use it.
Here's what you'll need:
- A Namco Museum My Arcade Mini Player
- A USB-A to USB-micro data cable - NOT simply a charging cable!
- Android SDK Platform Tools [https://developer.android.com/studio/releases/platform-tools]
- RetroArch for Android (32bit) [https://buildbot.libretro.com/stable/1.9.0/android/RetroArch_ra32.apk]
- RetroArch Cores for Android [https://buildbot.libretro.com/nightly/android/latest/armeabi-v7a/]
- ROMs of your choice to go with the cores
You only have to do this process once to install everything:
- Download the latest release [https://github.com/TerryGoodwin/NMMAMP-ExtraMuseum/releases]
- Unzip it wherever you want
- Install the Android SDK Platform Tools
- Recommended location is
c:\android\platform-tools - Rename your RetroArch 32bit APK as
retroarch.apkand put it in theretroarchfolder - Put any cores you want to use into
retroarch\cores - Put any ROMs you need into
roms - Put any BIOS files you need into
bios - OPTIONAL: Put any thumbnails for RetroArch into
retroarch\thumbnails - OPTIONAL: Put any playlists for RetroArch into
retroarch\playlists - OPTIONAL: Look at
frontend\gamelist.jsonto see how to customise the new frontend - OPTIONAL: Put any thumbnails for the new frontend into
frontend\thumbnails - OPTIONAL: Put any screenshots for the new frontend into
frontend\screenshots - OPTIONAL: Put any system icons for the new frontend into
frontend\systems - IMPORTANT! Make sure no other Android devices are connected!
- Make sure your device is plugged into the computer and turned on
- IMPORTANT! Make sure it's finished booting before continuing...
- Double-click the file
run_me_first_after_readme.bat - Be patient as everything is installed and follow the on-screen instructions
- That's (hopefully) it!
You should then be able to choose from the original game selection or the new frontend when you boot the device, then use the controls on the device to navigate the frontend and play some games! Or, alternatively, go straight into RetroArch.
Press the following buttons to make your choices:
*(A) Original, stock menu and games
*(B) New frontend, customisable by modifying gameslist.json and running utils/install_launcher_data.bat
*(Y) Launch directly into the RetroArch frontend
The biggest hurdle to getting this working was figuring out how to translate the built-in
controls into something that RetroArch could understand. Fortunately the stock software
prints every button press to the log, so I could see what button codes correspond with
which input. These have been translated into the retroarch.cfg included with the
scripts.
The four actions buttons are mapped directly to the button IDs internally, but with certain systems they don't have a great layout - but should be usable.
In the new frontend, press (A) to make a selection, or (B) to go back
Quits out of games. Currently does nothing inside the new frontend
The coin button acts as the hotkey within RetroArch, so the usual RetroArch combinations should work, but all I've really tested it with is Start to bring up the RetroArch menu.
Check you've installed the Android SDK Platform Tools where you think you did. If you
didn't install them to c:\android\platform-tools then you'll need to change the path at
the top of each .bat file by hand to reflect reality.
This could be for a couple of reasons:
- Windows couldn't figure out the drivers for the device - see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15721778/adb-no-devices-found and follow the answer by António Almeida. On my Windows 10 machine I didn't have to do anything, but on my Windows 8.1 machine I had to do that extra step.
- Your USB cable isn't transmitting data, only charge - try a different cable!
This is quite a low powered Android device under the hood, so many RetroArch cores are just simply too slow to be usable, which does mean several entire systems are basically off limits here.
Note that I was only interested in expanding the library with Namco games, so I've literally not even thought about trying non-Namco games or systems that didn't get any Namco games (so no NeoGeo beyond the Pocket Color.)
These systems either don't have fast enough emulation to be viable, or the hardware controls of the device aren't numerous enough to be worthwhile even if they were:
- SNES
- GameBoy Advance
- Arcade games beyond the early 80s
- Consoles passed the Genesis
- FCEUmm - Famicom/NES
- Gambatte - Game Boy/Game Boy Color
- Genesis Plus GX - Genesis/MegaDrive & SG1000
- MAME 2010 - Arcade
- Mednafen NGP - NeoGeo Pocket Color
- Mednafen PCE - PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16
- ProSystem - Atari 7800
- SMS Plus - Game Gear/Master System
- Stella 2014 - Atari 2600
- Nestopia - Famicom/NES, use FCEUmm instead
- Stella - Atari 2600, use Stella 2014 instead
- Various other versions of MAME - Arcade, use MAME 2010 instead
- Atari800 - Atari 5200, not sure why!
Core and game overrides for a variety of games and cores are provided in
retroarch\config to apply sensible default configuration options and to center the image
in the middle of the very tall screen of the Namco Museum My Arcade Mini Player but with
the right aspect ratio.
The get_latest_retroarch_data.bat and install_retroarch_data.bat scripts in utils
can be used to add new overrides for different cores or tinker with the ones already
there.
The utils directory contains various scripts with various functions, explained below.
Downloads the GAME directory from the device onto yoour computer. This directory
contains the stock ROMs and related frontend artwork, and some other bits and pieces
(including a full set of NeoGeo BIOS files for some reason...)
Performs various actions in sequence - each can be ignored if you want.
Downloads retroarch.cfg from the device and places it at retroarch\retroarch.new.cfg
so you can make new changes, then push them back to the device.
Downloads the config directory from the device and places it at retroarch\config -
this is mostly core overrides, mostly around screen placement. Do this before making
changes to those core overrides.
Downloads the thumbnails directory from the device and places it at
retroarch\thumbnails
Downloads the playlists directory from the device and places it at
retroarch\playlists
(Re-)Installs the launcher APK from frontend\emlauncher.apk
This is for customising the new frontend.
Performs various actions in sequence - each can be ignored if you want.
Pushes frontend\gamelist.json from your computer to the device.
Pushes the frontend\screenshots directory from your computer to the device.
Pushes the frontend\systems directory from your computer to the device.
Pushes the frontend\thumbnails directory from your computer to the device.
Installs RetroArch APK from retroarch\retroarch.apk then copies over the custom configuration file from retroarch\retroarch.cfg
It's possible to use RetroArch as your frontend instead of configuring the "Extra Museum" so this batch file is intended for you to be able to do that in addition to copying over the cores and configs you need. With this, you can copy over playlists and thumbnails, too.
Performs various actions in sequence - each can be ignored if you want.
If you want to make manual changes to the retroarch.cfg this is how you get them back on
the device. NOTE! If you've made any changes ON the device, they won't be reflected here
until you run get_latest_retroarch_data.bat and modify the file you get back, otherwise
you may lose changes.
Uploads retroarch\config to the device. Make manual changes to core overrides and remaps
and run this to get them into RetroArch. Remember to use
get_latest_retroarch_core_overrides.bat beforehand.
Re-copies the contents of retroarch\cores to your device. This is not a sync - if you
delete cores locally and then run this, they won't be removed from your device.
Copies the contents of retroarch\thumbnails to your device. There's an example directory
to show the expected directory structure - use PNGs that are the same name as your game
names as defined in RetroArch's playlists after importing the ROMs (so probably NOT the
same name as your ROMs.) See RetroArch documentation for more details.
Re-copies the contents of roms and bios to your device. This is not a sync - if you
delete ROMs locally and then run this, they won't be removed from your device.
Use remove_roms.bat to remove all ROMs and put back the ones you want with this.
Uninstalls everything from the device that's been put there by these scripts and restores it to stock.
Performs various actions in sequence - each can be ignored if you want.
After receiving confirmation, deletes all installed cores from the device. Use
install_retroarch_data.bat to put some back.
Deletes all RetroArch playlists on the device. Use install_retroarch_data.bat to put
some back.
Deletes all RetroArch thumbnails on the device. Use install_retroarch_data.bat to put
some back.
After receiving confirmation, deletes all installed ROMs from the device. Use
install_roms.bat to put some back.
If you've chosen to switch back to the stock experience via the script below (without uninstalling anything) run this to get the launcher back so you can boot the new frontend and RetroArch.
Restore the device back to the stock experience - without removing anything. Just run set_extra_launcher.bat if you want to get it all back again.
- If something causes a crash, occasionally that will reset the system's launcher choice.
This means that when you restart, it will pop up a stock Android selection to choose
whether the stock launcher or the new one should start - but you can't click on or select
anything. If this happens, run
utils\set_extra_launcher.batto reset that choice. - Certain RetroArch cores perform very poorly on this device because it's quite low powered - SNES, GBA, and any Arcade games after like 1984 are going to run really poorly, and there's not really anything to be done about it.
Not that much anymore!
- Make the Reset button take you back to the main menu
- Add button mappings per core/system so they make more sense.
- Extend RetroArch core and ROM scripts to allow drag-and-drop of single files
- macOS version, as this is all just ADB commands anyway...
- A GUI so it's not all just ADB commands in scripts!
All scripts and frontend artwork are entirely original and written/created by me, Terry Goodwin, other than anything to do with RetroArch of course!
System icons by Reddit user faustbear, and can be found in their original form here: https://www.reddit.com/r/miniSNESmods/comments/97bm5v/additional_icon_pack_20_for_hakchicenescsnesc/
Various elements of this use the font "Namco" by Akihiro, which can be found here: https://www.dafont.com/namco.font
Screenshots and thumbnails included were collated and arranged by me, but remain the property of their original creators and companies, and are included here for illustrative purposes or as transformed works.